BY Leslie Overman
"I was standing there looking into the dump and it was sort of like I was looking into the depths of hell. I looked down there and just couldn't believe it. There are 2,000 guajeros. Those are the people who gather the trash. I said, 'I've got to know what's going on.'"
In 2002, Mike Glad, IE 68, visited the Guatemala City garbage dump. What he did was make a documentary film that was nominated for an Academy Award.
As part of the College of Management's IMPACT speaker series, "Recycled Life," a 38-minute documentary that Glad produced and co-wrote in response to that visit, will be shown at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 17 in the college's LeCraw Auditorium.
Narrated by Edward James Olmos, "Recycled Life" tells the story of the generations of men, women and children who make their living recycling items found in the Guatemala City garbage dump. The film received an Oscar nomination for best documentary short earlier this year.
Glad, the CEO of AllGlad Inc. and owner of more than 20 Midas auto repair shops in northern California, personally financed the film, on which production began in 2002 and wrapped in 2006.
Joining Glad for the IMPACT event will be "Recycled Life" director Leslie Iwerks; Rachel Meyn with Safe Passage, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the children of the families that work in the Guatemala dump; and Stephanie Jolluck and Stephanie Servy of World In Need Now Inc., an Atlanta-based organization devoted to helping the poorest communities in Latin America.
Glad hopes that people who see his film will have a newfound respect for the world's less fortunate. "I want people to understand that there's dignity in a situation that you would look at and otherwise conclude there is none. I want them to understand that and then appreciate what they have," he told Tech Topics.
"When you see this film, your heart will be touched, because these are poor people, but you won't be feeling sorry for them. You won't say this is a person who's here because they're a lowlife or they haven't taken advantage of their opportunities. These are people who are there because they were born there, they were raised there. These are survivors. These are people who are working to be part of life. I want people to understand, to say, 'Wow, that's touching that people can have that spirit and that dignity yet have a set of circumstances that is almost beyond belief.'"
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